As part of its 1973 Week, BBC4 has been showing The Green Death, a classic Doctor Who adventure from that year.
I thought this slice of old Doctor Who stood up very well compared to the modern series. The effects were particularly ropy although some of the post production wasn't bad, especially the watery effect used to depict concussion, but overall the longer amount of time to tell the story was more of a strength then a weakness. The supporting cast were very good in the main although the odd bit of hamminess slipped through. The story itself, although not the strongest, was used well with high amounts of mystery (either that or I'm just a bit slow which seeming that I thought the Cybermen were behind it all is a strong possibility!)
Of course for the many proud Welsh People amongst us the depiction of the Valleys location might have been a wee bit stereotypical. 'See here now then you butt!'. Bert was a humorous highlight for me, closely followed by the Doctor dressed up as first a Welsh milkman, complete with comedy Welsh Accent, then as a char-lady, complete with comedy female Welsh Accent! Followed by the Hippy Commune full of yoghurt weaving scientific geniuses doing yoga and eating fungus!
Despite that there were some genuinely powerful moments and The Green Death was quite scary. The series lagged about two thirds the way through and the evil villain was a bit weak (I prefer alien monsters personally). I had heard that the leaving of Jo to go up the Amazon was a bit sudden and unconvincing but I really disagree with this and found the relationship with the professor real and believable. The departure of Jo was convincing the Doctor lonely sneaking away was touching in its simplicity and a nice contrast to the usual over emotional, overplayed, overstretched leaving scenes.
Anyway anybody know where this series was filmed? I thought I recognised Deri but I'm probably wrong.
© Jeff Baxter, 2006
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